Bukofsky Strikes Again

There is and there is not
A right way to write
A poem—

Which is like saying
Excuse me if I'm wrong but
Would it be all right

If I just say “Fuck it”?

Reunion

You seemed lovely then,
you with your shadow-breaking smile
and so much light beneath the skin,
beneath the sun that spun above us
and the wind.

There is no hiding it: This sun
is not the sun we knew,
or ever hope to know,
now that our coming near again
after our letting go, leads only
to shadows, dried-up landscapes,
last summer's cicadas stunned into silence.

(from Sentences, 1976)

Wanna Be a Poet?

Choose your words

Carefully if you must,
But never lose track of how

Many have been rejected.

Song of Civilization

Nothing sounds

As clear-cut as your voice shouting
Timber in the wilderness.

Kismet

Though fearing

The inevitable, for the love
Of one more moment

Of living, I will not perish
The thought.